Wizard Sweets
by Lamia of the Dark
Summary: Orion and Walburga's pre-marriage relationship told in a series of candy-related drabbles. Not in wholly chronological order. COMPLETE.
1. Blood-flavored

**DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.**

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Blood-flavored)

"What are you eating?"

"It's a blood-flavored lollipop. Want to try it?"

"Those are for vampires, you know."

"I tried one on a dare once. I thought it would be awful, but it turns out that I like the taste and now I can't stop eating them..."

"That's disgusting."

She leans down to pluck the half-eaten lollipop from his hand, and he takes the opportunity to steal a kiss. His lips are damp and sticky from the candy and taste strongly of sugar with a slight aftertaste of blood. As kisses go in general, this one is fairly awful, but it is enough to make her realize that she enjoys the taste of blood as well - in more ways than one.

~1/9~


	2. Lifelike

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Lifelike)

Thirteen-year-old Orion's expression turns sour as he observes the other couples around them in the crowded tea shop.

"Let's go somewhere else instead," he suggests.

"You said you wanted to go on a date," his cousin returns, smirking. "This is where people go on dates."

It's his first Hogsmeade weekend, and it's being ruined by his own stubborn insistence on bringing his beloved elder cousin on a date. (She doesn't take him seriously. He knows she doesn't.) He should have just asked her to show him around the village. Too bad he didn't think of that before...

She laughs in a most unladylike way at the look on his face.

He crosses his arms over his chest and mutters sullenly, "It wouldn't be so bad in here if everyone else was acting normally and not... not speaking in baby-talk and calling each other weird things like animals and names of sweets!"

"Oh, you don't like nicknames?" Walburga says, coming around behind his chair to wind her arms around his shoulders. "My little Chocolate Frog," she whispers in his ear.

If she were _serious_, it wouldn't bother him as much, he is fairly certain - but he can tell she is only teasing him.

"I suppose not," he concedes, unable to conceal the note of irritation in his voice over her chosen endearment. He turns his head to nuzzle her cheek and murmurs, "My sweet Cockroach Cluster."

~2/9~


	3. Secret

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Secret)

His dream of their future together is shattered when news of Walburga's impending wedding reaches him. There is nothing he can do about it. He is still underage, still in school. If he were to declare his love and ask her to run away with him, she would likely laugh in his face and tell him to grow up.

After he finishes school he marries the girl his parents have picked out for him, as is his duty as a firstborn son from a pureblood family.

Orion and Walburga keep in contact with each other throughout the years, but nothing of importance is ever said in the letters, until sometime after Orion's wedding when they discover that Sugar Quills can be used to send secret messages.

On parchment the lines dry clear. When burnt, the sugar turns brown. Holding a letter over the flame of a candle reveals the hidden messages.

In this way, they both learn that neither of them are happy in their arranged marriages.

~3/9~


	4. Wasteful

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Wasteful)

There are rumors that she poisoned her husband. In truth, she didn't. He was frail and sickly before they married, and his death a scant few years after their marriage should not have come as surprise to anyone who knew him. The gossips probably think they're so bloody clever for nicknaming her the Black Widow (because, when applied to _her_, it's also a _pun!_)

Since no children were borne of their union, her husband's brother inherited everything upon his death. So now here she is, a widow with not even a single Knut to her name and little chance to remarry, playing nanny to her brother's two daughters while Cygnus and Druella continue to attempt to conceive an heir.

The younger child isn't a problem, but the three-year-old is a hellion who gets into everything and has temper tantrums accompanied by outbursts of accidental magic with alarming regularity.

Walburga has taken to bribing the older child into behaving by giving her candy. (Luckily for her aunt, the little girl also has a love of keeping secrets from her parents. Walburga doubts they would approve of her tactics if they knew.)

Today's treat is Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. After getting a few bad flavors, Bellatrix has given up on trying to eat them and is now pelting a terrified house elf with them.

_Oh, well... whatever keeps the brat amused for a few minutes_.

~4/9~


	5. Distraught

~Wizard Sweets~  
(Distraught)

Orion sits staring at his wife's headstone long after the funeral has ended.

"Noonertone," a small voice says suddenly beside him, giving him little warning before something fluffy is pressed against the side of his face. He brushes the stuffed animal away, being careful not to hurt the child who is holding it. The little girl is one of Cygnus' daughters, although Orion isn't sure which one.

"Go away."

"Pet da noonertone," the child insists, pushing the toy against his cheek once more.

"Stop it, Bella. Leave me alone," he says.

He feels a tug on his sleeve and glances down to see another dark-haired little girl - presumably Cygnus' other daughter - standing beside him, her face scrunched into a peeved expression.

"_I'm_ Bella. That's Andi."

Andromeda is still shoving her toy unicorn into Orion's face, trying to make him pet it. Bellatrix snatches the stuffed animal from her sister and throws it as hard as she can. It goes soaring in a long arc across several rows of graves before landing in a patch of grass. Andromeda begins to cry. Orion scoops the weeping toddler into his lap and retrieves her toy with a summoning charm.

"No crying! Crying is for babies," Bella admonishes her little sister, who is still sobbing even though she has her unicorn back. Then the child notices the tears on Orion's face and her scowl deepens. "You don't cry, either! You're grown up!"

Orion reaches out and pulls her into his lap beside her sister.

"I just buried my wife and child. I'm allowed to cry."

"Are you sad?" Bella asks, sounding intrigued rather than sympathetic. "Do you want some candy?"

Orion sighs. Oh, how he wishes he could go back in time to when any sorrow he felt could be solved with the liberal application of sweets...

When Cygnus finally notices that his daughters are missing and sends his sister off to retrieve them, Walburga finds the girls tormenting poor Orion. Andromeda is still attempting to get him to pet her stuffed unicorn and Bellatrix is trying to feed him a Caramel Cricket.

~5/9~


	6. Acidic

**A/N: Just a warning so no one is shocked by this chapter... these aren't all in chronological order. (Although it might have seemed that way since 2-5 went in a straight progression, we're skipping around in time a bit now.) Also warning that Cygnus is not nearly as horrible a person in this fic as he is anywhere else I've written him so try not to be shocked by that, either.**

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Acidic)

Orion's wife is a blonde, air-headed, overly-excitable little thing.

"Oh, you're the one whose husband just died," she says, upon being introduced to Walburga for the first time.

Walburga struggles to keep a straight face while Orion visibly cringes at his wife's tactlessness. His wife is everything that Walburga is not, and seeing the woman he has always loved next to the one he never wanted is more painful for him than he would have imagined. He aches to reach out to his cousin and draw her into his arms, embrace her as he used to when they were children, call her by the nickname she hates just to hear her scold him over it, and perhaps coax a smile out of her... but, of course, he can't do any of those things.

Instead, he excuses himself from the current conversation at a convenient invitation to go and play wizard's chess with Cygnus.

Orion is forced to pay attention to his wife again some time later, after one of Cygnus' daughters tricks her into trying an Acid Pop.

While Orion makes a half-hearted attempt to comfort his now-hysterical wife, Druella starts to scold the child but is overruled by Cygnus - who tells her to leave the kid alone because it was funny and that she should lighten up. Druella storms out of the room with one child in her arms, leaving the other with Cygnus.

"Who's Daddy's little princess?" Cygnus murmurs affectionately, nuzzling his daughter's cheek.

"Me?" the child puts forth uncertainly.

"Yes, you," Cygnus says, laughing as he cuddles his offspring. "Where did you get the Acid Pop, anyway?"

The little girl hides her face against her father's shoulder and whispers, "It's a _secret."_

~6/9~


	7. Bitter

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Bitter)

Walburga wakes up and glances at the clock. It's after seven in the morning. She is late getting up today. She wonders why the children haven't come to wake her before she is ready to get up like they usually do, and what mischief they must be getting into...

But then she remembers that she does not live at her brother's house anymore. After the birth of their third daughter, Cygnus and Druella have given up on having an heir and are devoting themselves to raising their daughters.

It's strange being back in her parents' household, having nothing to do with her time. No little voices call her name, no sticky little hands clutch onto her skirts, no plush toy unicorns are shoved into her face... She misses her nieces more than she cares to admit.

It has been her dream since she was a child to make a respectable marriage and raise pretty pureblood children. She got a brief taste of what that life could be like, but her prospects for remarriage are slim, considering that the only person her father could convince to take her the first time around was a man who'd been desperate for someone to nurse him on his deathbed...

She now spends her days sleeping late, attempting to banish her loneliness with romance novels and chocolate, and trying not to be _too_ bitter over the news that Orion's wife is pregnant.

~7/9~


	8. Refreshing

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Refreshing)

It has not been long since he lost his wife and unborn child and Orion doesn't particularly feel like socializing, but the annual Black family Christmas party is a non-optional tradition. Attempting to skip out on the event would cause more of a fuss than he is willing to deal with. He avoids the majority of his family by joining Alphard in a small unused sitting room for a game of wizard's chess.

There is a glass dish of Peppermint Humbugs sitting on the table where they set up the chess board and as the game wears on, both of them occasionally pop one of the candies into their mouths.

"Have you heard," Alphard says suddenly, in the middle of the game, "that Abraxas Malfoy lost his wife recently as well?"

"No, I hadn't heard," Orion answers after a moment's pause.

"They had a private funeral, immediate family only," Alphard explains. "Abraxas didn't want a huge fuss over it."

"Why are you telling me this?" Orion asks, nonplussed. He has never been particularly close to Malfoy and as far as he knows, Alphard isn't anything like a friend to the man either.

Alphard gives his cousin a hard look, seemingly debating whether or not to tell him the reason. The chess board lies forgotten between them, the magical pieces playing on even without the explicit orders of their owners.

"He wouldn't be considering remarrying at this point if his son were older," Alphard says finally. "But the kid is still a baby, and needs a mother. The precious Malfoy heir can't be trusted to the care of a nanny." On the last bit, his tone slides into sarcasm.

Orion says nothing in response but fears he knows where this is going.

"There's been talk of him marrying my sister."

~8/9~


	9. Savory

~ Wizard Sweets ~  
(Savory)

Walburga could have opted out of the family Christmas party this year with impunity. Instead she has chosen to attend. Were her other option for holiday socialization not an invitation to dinner at Malfoy Manor, she would have avoided the party as well and consequences be damned. However, she was certain that the Malfoy matriarch was shopping for a new wife for Abraxas, and Walburga did not fancy spending the next sixteen years of her life being Mrs. Malfoy in name only while her only true function in the marriage would be as a surrogate mother to Lucius. And who knew what her situation would be like once the boy was of age and out of the house... Abraxas was - and very likely still _is_ - very much in love with his wife. Walburga doesn't fancy spending the rest of her life as his unwanted and unloved second wife, with no children of her own to raise.

She quickly tires of her female relatives subtly inquiring about her love life and not-so-subtly inquiring about her recent weight gain (which is due entirely to her recent intense affair with Honeyduke's Finest Chocolate, and _certainly not_ due to a pregnancy, as she has not been with anyone in that manner since before her late husband passed away.)

She slips away from the party to her father's private study, where she has a clandestine meeting with the other love of her life - a romance novel. After only half an hour of peacefully enjoying her book, she is interrupted.

Orion's expression is stormy as he enters the room but clears once he catches sight of her.

"I thought I'd find you here," he says.

"Was someone looking for me?" she asks with a frown.

"Just me," he replies, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

She sighs and sets the book aside.

"And what do you want?"

Undeterred by her grumpy attitude, he approaches the chair upon which she is perched.

"Merry Christmas," he says, producing a small gift-wrapped box from somewhere in the folds of his dress robes.

"I didn't get you anything."

Her words elicit a dry chuckle from him.

"I know something you can give me," he says, as she opens her present.

Inside the box is a single blood-flavored lollipop, which reminds her of their first-

He leans down and kisses her before she can finish the thought.

~9/9~

**A/N: And that concludes this particular saga.**


End file.
